Cheap G-Scale street lamps from Ebay

The newly built city roads on my garden layout desperately needed some sort of street lighting. G-Scale lamps made by German or American companies are however really expensive. Taking into account the length of my roads, I knew I should be looking for a cheaper alternative. I have again turned to Ebay for ideas...

Ebay seems to be full of "G-Scale stuff". Unfortunately when it comes to street lamps, most of the offers feature items that are not really G-Scale. Lamp posts smaller than 10cm (4in) are barely taller than people figures. I was sure this would not look right...

That's when I found this auction:

It promised much, much taller street lamps. The price was a little higher but still acceptable. And so I purchased a set of 4 items for less than $15 including shipping. The merchandise arrived a few weeks later...

The packaging is typical for cheap items from China. The product is however well protected and everything arrived intact.

The set consists of four lamp posts and four resistors that we need to solder ourselves. Interestingly the seller sent me a wrong set of resistors but realized his mistake, contacted me and sent another package with the correct ones. Good service!

I really wanted to open the model to see what's inside. It is however well glued and I gave up as I was afraid of damaging it.

The model is made of plastic that feels rather cheap. On the other hand, it also feels like the low-quality material was used to produce a rather detailed and properly constructed item. Nothing falls apart and there's definitely no "crappy" feeling. Still - the cheap plastic brings doubts about the possible outdoor performance.

The lamp is indeed taller than other Ebay products. It measures around 18cm (7 in).

The resistors provided with the lamps are 150 Ohm. This means that at 16V a single lamp would consume around 100mA. This seemed like a lot to me...

And indeed - with the default resistor the lamps are very bright. I've decided to experiment a little and see what brightness I would consider valid. Here is a comparison of the light produced for different resistance values.

In the end I've decided to go with 470 Ohm resistors. After installing the lamps on the layout, I can confirm the decision was good. The light is still very bright but not blinding in a night setting.

Here's the setup just before dusk...

...and here it is right after the sunset.

One thing I do not like about the lamps is the fact that their light is not directed to the ground but to the sides. This means that even though they're very bright, the streets and the sidewalks are not really that well lit.

The overall outcome is still very satisfying. The lamps look nice and the part of the layout were they got installed became definitely much more interesting now. I'm going to wait till spring and see if they survive the winter. If they do, I will buy many more in order to light up all my roads.

LGB 50600: G-Scale 450mm long truss bridge

Some weeks ago I've created a small water pond on my garden layout. I have to admit I knew little about how to build it, so I just improvized. I did know however very, very well that a train was going to look pretty cool when passing over it. The only missing element was a bridge.

The pond is small, so a short bridge was enough. I've purchased LGB 50600 model which is just 45cm long. It cost me 20 Euro and arrived in an LGB branded cardboard box.

The package contains only the bridge itself. It's a single element. Nothing to build, nothing to glue. Looks good at first sight.

The bridge is made of plastic and makes a solid overall impression. The material seems sturdy and high quality. I do have to say however that the side panels are rather thin and would definitely not survive accidentally stepping on them.

Let's see some more photos...


The model features four holes which can be used to screw it to a base. On my layout however, it will simply lie down on the rocks.

And this is what the bridge looks like installed across the pond on my garden layout.


So... How do I like it? Well, I think it's simply a good product. The birds however seem to love it a lot!

Handcrafted G-Scale flat car from Ebay and making "cab view" videos

The more elements I added to my new garden layout, the more I wanted to learn whether my miniature world already looked interesting from the point of view of its "inhabitants". The idea of seeing it through their eyes was so tempting, I knew I had to do it one way or another.

That's how I decided on making some "cab view" videos, What I needed was just a flat car where I could attach a small camera. I was considering buying some old used rolling stock and making it my recording platform. Second hand LGB cars are however pretty expensive and I could not find a good offer. That's when I ran into this Ebay auction:

It promised a new wooden handcrafted flat car at a price level below a used LGB car. I've decided to give it a go....

The car was supposed to come from Sri Lanka. After some weeks of waiting I received a package. To my surprise it came open and EMPTY inside. I complained to the seller who immediately sent another item. This one arrived successfully...

Hmm... nice envelope :)

Inside we find a medium-sized plastic bag with all the elements carefully packaged. Looks promising.

What we get are:

• a wooden platform
• parts for building two sets of wheels
• two sets of couplers (not really compatible with LGB)
• over a dozen of plastic bolts

The build also requires a glue. The seller recommends using super-glue and while it does not work on wood immediately, it gets the job done in the end. The entire model is ready in half an hour.

Some more photos from various angles.


As mentioned before the couplers are not standard LGB type. Additionally I had to install them differently from the way it was suggested, or they would end up too high for my other cars. This is the result of my installation.

And here's the car with a GoPro camera installed.

I also noticed the car was very, very light. I decided to increase its weight by attaching some steel pieces. This operation made the model almost three times as heavy.

So how did it work? Well, I have to say I did run into two issues:

• The car does not operate that great when being pushed and derails a lot then. This does not really surprise but here the performance is additionally affected by the second issue...
• ...which is the non standard coupler. I was able to connect the car's coupler to an LGB/PIKO rolling stock but it would almost immediately detach when being pushed. In case of pulling the connection - to my surprise - was quite good. 

On the other hand, I have to admit that after some trying I got quite promising first results. Once I picked the correct locomotive to do the pushing and once I found an optimum running speed, my video recording setup worked pretty well. And this is what I captured:

The "handcrafted wooden flat car" from Ebay deserves an extra note. I've used this product in a way it was never meant to be used. And I think being fair requires saying that the model itself looks really nice. The fact it's made of wood gives it a very interesting appearance right away. It's definitely an option worth considering for anyone trying to build their own custom train.